A method for energy efficient configuration of a physical port of a plurality of physical ports of a network device is described herein. One or more physical ports of the plurality of physical ports may be aggregated to a logical port in a logical communication channel between the network device and another device. A configuration of the one or more physical ports is determined. The configuration includes one or more parameters which are monitored. The physical port of the plurality of physical ports is selected and a configuration state of the selected physical port is modified upon detection of an event based on the one or more parameters. The modified configuration state is one of an active port state, an active port state with a limited bandwidth utilization rate, and a standby port state. The selected port is reconfigured according to the modified configuration state.